The Redhunter

• American assessment of Iraqi military abilities before the war was fairly accurate.

• The Iraqis did things during the war that made no sense to American commanders. Within the Iraqi world view, however, they made perfect sense, for their primary objective was to do whatever Saddam wanted, no matter how objectively absurd it might be.

• For example, Saddam decided that rather than use his air force against the coalition, he would try and hide it as best he could. This took an important weapon away from his commanders, but Saddam believed that we would not send our ground forces very far into Iraq.

• Because the sanctions so hurt the Iraqi army, Saddam formed an organization called the Military Industrial Commission. It’s job was to develop “wonder weapons” that would save Iraq. Saddam put great faith in the eventual development of these weapons. Because the Commission’s leaders were so fearful of Saddam, they made promises that they knew they could not deliver.

• Senior officials lied to Saddam extensively and continually about the true state of Iraqi defenses. As a result, he never knew the true state of his military.

• Any report to Saddam had to be embellished with flowery rhetoric about what a great leader he was. This applied even to the most simple reports.

• After the war, some of the more capable military commanders we interviewed reported four additional factors that negatively affected military readiness:

o “The most irrelevant military guidance passed from the political leadership to the lowest level of military operations.”

o “The creation and rise of private armies.”

o “The tendency for relatives and sycophants to rise to the top national security positions.”

o “The combined effects of the onerous security apparatus and the resulting limitations on authority.”

• Conclusion: “Many senior Iraqi military officers blamed this “coup-proofing” of the regime for most of what befell the Iraqi Army during Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

My Take

The report goes into much greater detail on the "four additional factors that negatively affected military readiness" cited above, but I believe that you can get the gist of it from this summary.

It is clear that the Iraqi regime was much more fragile than we had believed it was. When our analysists looked at the Iraqi Army, they looked at it just as our guys looked at the Wehrmacht before D-Day. We examined their weaponry, expertise in handling it, the leadership capabilities of their junior as well as senior officers, their logistical trail, their communications, in short, everyting that we considered important.

What we failed to realize is that although Iraq was ruled by a Ba'athist regime ever bit as brutal as the Nazis, Saddam had completely co-opted the Iraqi Army in a way that Hitler never had with the Wehrmacht. The German Army managted to remain outside the Nazi structure, it kept and promoted it's own officers, and kept it's own tradition of excellence.

Not Just Our Leaders

But it wasn't just American military leaders who missed it; the entire press corps did as well.

Just as with the Gulf War, in the run-up to OIF we heard predictions of tens of thousands of American casualties, of a "Battle of Baghdad" that was sure to last for months, the "pause" during our invasion that was a sure sign of doom, millions of Iraqi casualties, a gigantic humanitarian crisis, on and on. Gateway Pundit has a collection of these and other predictions that turned out incorrect.

Natan Sharansky would smile if he read this. One of the points he made in his book The Case for Democracy was that dictatorships are much more fragile than they appear. While the aftermath was certainly more messy and difficult than we predicted, taking down the regime was much easier.

There are lessons here for everyone.